How does Mobile phone work?

The Mobile Phone and Its Functions

For many of our daily works depends on the Mobile Phone. Throughout the last decade, Mobile phones have become a crucial part of our life. It simplified our life by making long-distance calls, multi functionalities, The internet technology, Entertainment, and still on counting. but how this small box of electronics does work? I guess many of you have a curiosity to know how the mobile phone works. well in this blog we are going to see the mobile functionalities and it's working.

Mobile Phone Operating System/Software

An Operating System is a system which manages the hardware, software resources, and provides common services to computer programs. The Operating system gives a platform to many of the third-party applications(app) to run on mobile. 

A Software/an app is a bunch of programs collectively work together for similar functionality. it gives the functionalities to a particular cause. like for eg. an alarm clock on your phone does the functionality of flaming. SMS app does the functionality of sending the message. All the apps are managed by collectively head called operating system of the device. 

There are different operating systems for different phones. such as android OS for android phones, Ios for I-phones, Samsung bata for Samsung. recently Samsung started using android from the last 5 years. Black Berry OS for Black Berry phones. Windows for Microsoft mobiles. and so on counting.

How does Mobile make a call?

The evolution of mobile phone communication has a large impact on our lives. the evolution of mobile phones from 1G to 5G is varying in their functionality, technology, sizes. 

Calling  Through Mobile 

Let's explore the technology behind mobile communication.

 When you make a call through your phone, your voice is picked up by the phone's microphone. The microphone turns your voice into a digital signal with the help of the Mems sensor and IC.

the digital signal contains your voice in the form of 0's and 1's. an antenna inside the phone receives these 0's and 1's. and convert it to electromagnetic waves.  The electromagnetic wave transfers 0's and 1's by altering wave characteristics such as amplitudes waves frequency phase or combinations of this.

 for eg. in case of the frequency, the 0's and 1's transmitted by low and high frequency respectively.


so if you could transmit these electromagnetic waves into your friend's phone you'll be able to establish a call. However, The electromagnetic ages are capable of transmitting the distances. they lose their strength due to the presence of physical objects, electrical equipment, and some environmental factors. in fact, if there were no such issues even then electromagnetic waves would not carry out forever, due to the search curved structure.

To overcome these issues cell towers are introduced. using the concept of cellular technology.

Cellular  Technology 

In Cellular Technology the Geographical area is divided into the hexagonal cells. with each call having its own tower and frequency slot. generally, these cell towers are connected with wires or optical fiber calls. these optical fiber cables are laid under the ground or the ocean. to provide national and international connectivity.

The Electromagnetic wave produced by your phone is priced up by the tower in your cell and convert them into a high-frequency light pulse. these light pulses are carried to base transceiver box for further signal processing. after processing your voice signal is routed towards destination tower. upon receiving the pulses the destination towers radiated outwards in the form of electromagnetic waves and your friend's phone then receive the signal. this signal undergoes a reverse process. and your friend hears your voice.

so, it's true that mobile communications are not entirely wireless they do used wire too.

however, there is a big issue mobile communication only successful only when your tower sends the signal to other towers. but how does your tower know which cell phone area your friend is located? 

Well for this process the cell tour gets helps from the Mobile switching center(MSC). 

when you purchased a SIM card all the subscription information is registered in a specified MSC. this MSC will be your home MSC. the home MSC stores information such as service plans, your current location, and your activity status.

if you moved outside the range of home MSC. the new MSC  which serves you instead is called foreign MSC.  as you enter a foreign MSC as you enter a foreign MSC region. it communicates with your home MSC. in short your home MSC, always knows which MSC are you are in.

To understand which cell location the subscriber is,  within the MSC uses the special techniques.  one way is to update the subscriber location after a certain period. when the phone process a certain number of locations the location update is again done.  the last one of these is when the phone turned on.

for eg. 

Ross and Rachel are friends. for instance, Rachel calls Ross and dialed his number. the call request arrives at Rachel's home MSC. upon receiving Ross's number the request will be forward to Ross's home MSC. now Ross MSC will now check for his current MSC. if  Ross is in his home MSC. the call request immediately sends to his current cell location.  and checks whether Ross's phone is engaged on another call or if its mobile is switched off. if everything is positive  Ross's phone rings and a call will be connected.  

However, if Ross is not in his home MSC, Ross home MSC simply forwards the call to foreign MSC. and then foreign MSC will locate Ross's phone. and will then establish a call. 

Why Frequency Spectrum is Important in mobile communication?

To transfer 0's and 1's in digital communication each subscriber has allocated a frequency range. however, the frequency spectrum available for cellular communication is quite limited. and there are billions of subscribers. this issue is solved with help of two technologies 

1. Frequency slot distribution

2. Multiple access technique

1. Frequency slot distribution

In this technology, different frequencies slot is allocated to different cell towers

2. Multiple access technique

In this technology, these frequencies are equally distributed to all the users in a cellular area.

Why are there Different Generations of Mobile cell Technologies?

1G originally allowed users for the first time to use a phone without a cabal attach to it.

but 1G suffered from two major problems. the first problem is wireless transmission was in analogue format. analog signals are easily altered by external sources. so it provided poor voice quality and poor security. (Data speed - 2.4 kb/s) the second problem was that it used the Frequency Division Multiple Access techniques which uses the available spectrum in an inefficient way.

These factor pays the way to 2G. uses digital multiple access technologies namely, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Code Division Multiple Access(CDMA). the 2nd Generation also introduced a revolutionary Data service (Data speed - 50kb/s), SMS, and Internet service.

3G  Technology uses Wideband Code Division Multiple Access(WCDMA) with an increase in bandwidth to achieve it. the 3G speed of 2Mbps allows the transfer of data for uses such as GPS, videos, voice calls,  etc. 3G was a huge transformation of the basic phone to a smartphone.

4G  achieves the speed of 120Mbps this was suitable for high-resolution movies and television. this high resolution was possible because of the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access. (OFDMA) and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO)technology. MIMO uses multiple trasreceivor antennas inside both the mobile phone and the tower.

The Next Generation of 5G to be rolled out soon....